This invention relates to an improved game simulation interface device for integrating golf, or other sports, swing "analyzers" with prerecorded home video games.
Recreational activities consume a large part of Americans' time and energy. This enthusiasm for recreation is evidenced by the large number of patents that have issued in sports training and practice apparatus. Sports requiring the use of sports implements, such as golf clubs, tennis racquets, baseball bats, etc., have drawn considerable interest by inventors. In particular, devices designed to simulate the play of a golf game indoors have been widely developed. An example of such a golf training and practice apparatus is disclosed in Cromarty U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,406 which has a television display and a "mat" with a plurality of sensors for sensing positions of a head of a golf club during the swing at a ball at a given location. The television enables alphanumeric display of other parameters of the swing, and provides on the television display a fixed image of the angle of the face of the club at a time just before the club reaches the ball position location. Further, the device provides information concerning the relative weight on each of the golfer's feet during various positions of the swing. Other patents that have issued, of which the applicant is aware, for devices which provide some feedback by means of a television are: McCollough et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,408,750; Linn, Jr. U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,941; Tonner U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,121; and Ladick et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,934.
Other devices utilize complex backdrops, screens, grids, meshes and the like in order to provide simulated golf experiences. Lynch et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,160,942 is typical of these highly complex and expensive devices requiring a wide variety of photo cameras, video projection devices and backstops. Others of the same type are: Muskegon et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,589,732; Conklin et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,620,537; Christophers et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,759,528; Lindquist U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,994; and Armantrout et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,672.
A few other devices attempt to provide graphics,of generally rudimentary form, simulating a golf course and where a ball which has previously been "struck" would land. Miller U.S. Pat. No. 4,283,056 and Chen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,429,880 provide such rudimentary visual aids. These visual aids suffer in that they are generally not realistic and are not accompanied by realistic sights and sounds of a golf course. Further, they very often do not incorporate the actual hazards that one would encounter on a typical golf course. As a result they are less instructive than they could be.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, from sports to entertainment, there has been an explosion of video games throughout the country. These video games have moved out of arcades and moved into the home and have become ever more progressively sophisticated and realistic. In particular, golf games video now include every hazard that one might encounter on an actual course and often times, since they can be fabricated by the user in some cases, more hazards than one might normally encounter in real life. The visual and audio effects on these games are increasingly superior and realistic. Industries have sprung up around them such as exemplified by the NINTENDO (TM) home entertainment system which offers, among other things, "Jack Nicklaus, Greatest 18 Holes Of Major Championship Golf (TM)". Golf games for home entertainment systems such as these provide realistic graphics and sound in simulating the actual play of golf, but they do not provide realistic player participation input in playing the game. The current method of playing the game requires pushing buttons on a handheld controller in order to mechanically manipulate the simulated golfer so as to determine the characteristics of the golf shot.
Drawbacks to many of the golf swing sensing "mats" used for the collection of data concerning the golf swing at home are that they have not provided realistic visual simulation of actual conditions encountered on a golf course. Essentially, previous feedback has been limited to numeric information with limited graphics. A substantial drawback to the commercial devices is that the cost for them is generally prohibitively expensive, between $6,500 to $40,000, for a device that provides little useful training information at all. On the other hand, golf games for home entertainment systems, as previously noted, provide realistic graphics and sound but do not provide realistic input in playing. Thus, there is a need in the art for providing an inexpensive game simulation interface which combines the data collected by the mat, with realistic video games so that actual movement of a sports implement, i.e. a golf club or baseball bat etc., will result in the data being translated into a form acceptable to the video player and video game for the incorporation of the enhanced graphics and sound. It, therefore, is an object of this invention to provide an improved game interface apparatus and method for combining actual swing data with prerecorded games with enhanced graphics and sound.